


Beloved

by rikke_leonhart



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Vicchan dying messed Yuuri up, Yuuri is such an unreliable narrator, canonical death of a pet, yuuri is a mess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-03
Updated: 2018-10-03
Packaged: 2019-07-24 19:27:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16181639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rikke_leonhart/pseuds/rikke_leonhart
Summary: The death of a pet shapes you whether you want it to or not. Of Yuuri, of Makkachin and the hollows Vicchan left behind.





	Beloved

**Author's Note:**

> I really, really love Yuuri, okay?

*

 

When Yuuri wakes up in the mornings now, it’s often to the sound of paws on the floor outside his room. The critter of nails, the slight weight of a happy trot.

 

Cooing words, a fond whisper.

 

Some mornings, it makes Yuuri smile.

 

Most mornings, he curls up and bites down on his lip so he doesn’t cry.

 

*

 

“Yuuri!”

 

Yuuri pauses over his rice and nori. The trot of Makkachin’s happy paws always follows Victor and Yuuri waits for the inevitable pang in his heart. There she is – a happy dog-smile, tongue already lolling, her damp nose coming to bump against Yuuri’s elbow in search of loving hands.

 

He can’t deny her and he doesn’t want to. It doesn’t make it hurt less.

 

It somehow makes it hurt _more_.

 

“Hello, Makka,” he greets her gently and lets one of his hands find her curly head, scritches gently at her and she bumps his fingers insistently.

 

“And what about me?” Victor asks, still in the doorway, and Yuuri looks up at him. It’s still weird. Victor Nikiforov in his childhood home, in his lived-in kitchen, looking both out of place and so at home that it makes something inside of Yuuri ache in ways he doesn’t understand.

 

“Good morning, Victor,” Yuuri says obediently and watches as Victor’s face lights up in a smile that Yuuri finds is slowly turning into something _more_ than it’s been in Yuuri’s posters and magazines for most of Yuuri’s skating life.

 

Conversations with Victor are difficult. It’s _so_ strange to have Victor here, in the flesh, on his own volition, and being Yuuri’s coach. Victor says strange things; has strange ideas to carry out, asks strange questions about Hasetsu, about Yutopia, about every little detail of Yuuri’s life. Yuuri is finding it increasingly difficult to not surrender, but there are some things he balks at, some barriers he refuses to let Victor tear down. He won’t let Victor come too close, won’t let him take a closer look.

 

Yuuri knows Victor won’t like what he sees. He’ll get there eventually, Yuuri knows this, but if he can keep Victor from seeing all of Yuuri’s flaws for a little while longer, he’ll fight for it.

 

Makkachin’s fluffy head bumps his hand again and he pets her one last time before turning back to his breakfast.

 

“Ah, Vicchan!” His mother says as she comes in. “Tea?”

 

Tea in Japanese was probably the first word Victor memorized. “Yes please!”

 

Yuuri tunes out of the conversation happening around him. It consists of Victor’s extremely limited, albeit very enthusiastic, Japanese vocabulary, and his mother’s also very limited, and equally enthusiastic, English vocabulary and hand and arm gestures, making it increasingly likely for something to get knocked off the table.

 

Without thinking about it, he looks down at Makkachin, who seems to send him a commiserating look. Yuuri’s throat tightens and he shovels some rice into his mouth, which makes his mother huff at him, but at least it distracts him a little bit.

 

“So,” Victor finally says, resurfacing from… whatever it was he’d been enthusiastically gesticulating at Yuuri’s mother, “Are you ready for your run?”

 

At the word _run_ , Makkachin picks up and is on her feet, tail wagging. Victor laughs – his laughter and smiles are always easy on his lips. “Makkachin sure is,” Victor muses, still grinning and petting her when she butts _his_ hand.

 

Yuuri feels his own mouth curl slightly upwards, but it feels tight, like a grimace he can’t quite control. “Sure,” he says, and, quickly, “let me get my kit.”

 

And if his retreat from the room perhaps resembles _fleeing_ , then that’s his own business.

 

*

 

In between changing tracks in his headphones, Yuuri hears scratching. Distant and faint, but scratching nonetheless. He might’ve been away for a long time, but he knows the sounds of the house. He squints in the dim light of his screen and then sighs when the scratching sounds again.

 

He turns away from the computer, takes off his headphones and peeks out into the hallways.

 

There’s scratching, definitely, from Victor’s room. He tiptoes, avoids the creaking spots and takes a deep breath. Yuuri doesn’t like just assuming he’s welcome in Victor’s room, despite Victor very expressed permission, so he’s very careful when he slides the door open. The hallway is dark and offers no light into the dark room, but Makkachin’s outline is clear to him, and she seems restless.

 

“Out, girl?” he murmurs and she almost trips in her haste to pass him. He follows her, of course he does, down the stairs on careful feet, lets her precede him and his fingertips catches slightly on her fur as she waits for the door to open.

 

He watches her in the moonlight, sniff and do her business. He remembers other nightly runs, with a dog less than half her size, but no less happy and playful.

 

Yuuri closes his eyes, breathes deep, and makes himself watch over Makkachin as she evidently decides that being outside in the middle of the night is the best thing ever. At least, the way she seems to be in no hurry whatsoever to get back inside tells Yuuri that he should probably get comfortable.

 

He sits, stretches his legs and feels the burn of the practice earlier. His legs had felt like jelly after his seventeenth jump, and Victor had seemed gleeful at Yuuri’s stamina having a limit. Which only probably means that he’ll push for more jumps.

 

Yuuri will do his best not to disappoint him.

 

It’s nice, he muses, to be in shape again. He hadn’t missed it, his last months in Detroit. He’d gone to his sessions with Celestino, but it’d been obvious to anyone with a working pair of eyes that he hadn’t wanted to be there. It might not have been an entirely conscious decision, but he’d just let his body go, because it hadn’t mattered anymore.

 

His mouth twists. Victor had gone the entirely wrong way about it – Yuuri will feel the sting of being called a piggy for a long time. It’s not Victor’s fault that Yuuri latches on to words like these and wields them as weapons against himself and holds them up as an accurate mirror for his image, but he’s working on it.

 

Makkachin gives a soft bark and Yuuri squints into the darkness. He can’t see her, but he can hear the rustle of leaves in one of the bushes. Ah, she’s on a journey, then, through the Kingdom of Bushes and Leaves.

 

He folds his legs back in and folds his arms around his knees. His thighs burn, his calves are tightly coiled. His feet ache in a reassuring way. His hips and back are a canvas of bruises. He spends long periods of time with ice pressed to various points of aches, but it’s a good ache, the kind that makes him feel like he’s doing something that’s worth it. He’ll _make_ it worth it, and of not for himself, then for Victor.

 

Because… because he couldn’t make it for Vicchan.

 

There’s a sob permanently lodged in his chest, waiting to break out, and as his breath catches in his throat, he buries his face in his arms. His eyes sting. He misses Vicchan with a physical permanence that frightens him, but it’s what he deserves, nothing more and nothing less. It’s terrible, missing someone like this; missing very specific things like the feel of fur between his fingers in the night, a warm cuddle when things got rough, a wet nose pressed against the side of his throat when he went in for a hug, the sound of happy yips when he got back home.

 

The sight of a curled up bundle of joy sleeping on the bench beside the rink as he faithfully waited for Yuuri to finish practice.

 

Warm, brown eyes, always, always _so_ happy.

 

There’s a warm body trotting up to him now, he realizes as Makkachin sits down next to him and leans slightly towards him. She’s so intuitive, he thinks as he automatically reaches out to settle a hand on her back, and it’s so easy to just hug her to him. She has to be intuitive, he thinks, because Victor needs her, too.

 

Yuuri hasn’t known her long, and he already loves her so much, but he almost doesn’t want to. It hurts so much, and will hurt worse when Victor inevitably leaves and takes her home.

 

Makkachin is not Yuuri’s.

 

Vicchan was all Yuuri’s to care for and to love, and look what Yuuri went and did.

 

It _hurts_.

 

He’s cried so much already and every time he thinks he’s cried entirely out, dried out every single tear left in his body, he surprises himself with his capacity for being pathetic. His eyes are burning again and he sniffs, pets Makkachin briefly and stands. It helps doing something, to not let his thoughts wander. If he can focus, there’s no room for overthinking and dwelling on issues he’d rather not think about.

 

He looks down at her, and she’s so pretty in the scant light. “Let’s get you back to Victor,” he mutters and her tail wags slowly in response. She’s Victor’s most precious companion, not Yuuri’s, and he’ll make sure she gets there safely, every single time he has the chance to.

 

And as he sees her into Victor’s room and slides the door closed behind her, he reminds himself that this is fleeting and to not get attached.

 

He shakes his head at himself. He’s always been self-destructive, but this is probably a new low.

 

*

 

Victor is everywhere in his life, permeating every corner of his waking hours, apparently wants to be in Yuuri’s sleeping hours, too. He wants to know what Yuuri is thinking, what he wants to eat, what his plans are for practice, how he’s feeling and what he wants to do. He’s in Yuuri’s sight, in his presence and his thoughts; in his house, in his kitchen and in his reach.

 

Victor is everywhere.

 

Where Victor goes, so does Makkachin if she’s allowed.

 

Victor loves her _so_ much, adores her, worships the ground on which she sits and sleeps and wags her tail on. His praise is plenty and the treats even more, and sometimes even Makkachin doesn’t seem to know what to do with all that love, as if she can’t possibly contain all that joy in her furry, warm, beloved body.

 

When she asks for cuddles, Yuuri obliges. When she asks for a treat, with huge, liquid eyes, he lets her choose. She has him wrapped around her paw, a willing subject.

 

Their nocturnal visits to the garden becomes a regular occurrence, though more and more often she just settles down next to him, a warm presence in the night as the air goes crisper and colder.

 

If Yuuri goes to Victor’s room in the evening to ask if he wants to watch a movie – if Makkachin is there, cozy and cuddled up to Victor in Victor’s bed, in Victor’s sheets, in Victor’s hands, Yuuri’s words wither and he offers good night instead.

 

He goes somewhere else.

 

“Hello, Vicchan,” Yuuri murmurs. The _butsudan_ carries all the serene love they all pour into it, and none of the playfulness Vicchan inhabited in the living moments. It just _is_. It sits non-judgmental, representing the complete embodiment of Yuuri’s failures and shortcomings.

 

There are too many to count. Far too many.

 

His legs are slowly going numb from the seiza he’s folded his legs into, but he doesn’t mind. Right when he first got back to Japan, this was the only place his head would be quiet. It’s even truer now, with Victor’s presence looming so large in his thoughts and presence all day, every day, and when he comes here, he can breathe.

 

There’s silence.

 

It’s a constant buzz in his ears, an almost imperceptible itch at the back of his head. There’s only ever silence and peace when he’s here or on the ice, but the ice isn’t his anymore, not the way he’s sharing it with Victor.

 

“I’m sorry, Vicchan,” he mutters, not for the first time, as he lights up the incense. It feels wrong to derive peace from Vicchan’s death, and he’s sorry for that, too. He’s sorry for so many things. “When I finished practice, it was almost as if I could hear you barking at me. I was so happy.”

 

It hadn’t lasted long – even Victor’s distracting personality hadn’t been enough for long. Makkachin had left Yuuko’s watchful eye by that time and was standing faithfully by Victor’s side, perfectly happy to wait for Yuuri to finish unlacing his skates and wiping them down, as if she’d done it hundreds of times herself. Perhaps she has: she’s a peculiar dog.

 

In many ways, she’s just as strange as her owner, but then again, perhaps there’d have been no chance of Victor having a docile, lazy dog, as obedient as a door. Makkachin is well-behaved, properly trained, and still seems to demand an explanation if Victor asks her unreasonable things, like standing still when drying her paws from the rain with a soft towel. Yuuri has witnessed _that_ particular discussion several times and it’ll never stop being amusing.

 

“I see Makkachin out of the corner of my eye, and I think it’s you,” he confesses and the incense teases his nose. His hands clench. “And I get so irrationally angry when it isn’t.”

 

Vicchan’s eyes in the photograph are young and happy – Yuuri’s own face is so different, he thinks. “I know,” he agrees, voice just slightly more than a hum. He doesn’t want to disturb. “It’s not her fault. And she’s – she’s _lovely_.”

 

His voice breaks.

 

He’d thought he’d run out of tears.

 

Well, he’s been wrong before.

 

*

 

When he comes to, he’s so warm, and he blinks blearily and gets an eyeful of fur.

 

“Go back to sleep,” Victor whispers beside him. “You fell asleep and I didn’t want to move you.”

 

His brain comes marginally more awake. There’s a living, breathing, _furry_ body in his arms. Makkachin’s breath is long and steady, her heartbeat rhythmic against his hand on her.

 

“Makkachin will be upset if you leave,” Victor insists, his voice still just a whisper, “and she’s sleeping so well.”

 

That’s not what he means, Yuuri is pretty sure, but his body feels heavy, a lethargic sensation washing over him, and he doesn’t want to move. Not really. The fur is not exactly like Vicchan’s, but close enough. The body is bigger and he can’t engulf it the way he used to do, but it’ll do for now.

 

It's wrong, but it’s also right.

 

“Sleep,” Victor begs and Yuuri realizes that Victor’s arm is around him, too. His voice rumbles against Yuuri’s back. As time passes, Yuuri is helpless to Victor.

 

He sleeps.

 

*

 

Victor Nikiforov the skater is not who Yuuri trains with every day.

 

Victor, and just Victor, even though there’s nothing _just_ about him, is an entirely different creature to whoever the camera captures at any given moment at competitions and in interviews. Victor is not that person. Well, he’s not just that personality.

 

Victor always moves in the exact opposite direction of what Yuuri expects of him. If Yuuri constructs as many walls as he possibly can? Victor takes a jackhammer to it. Yuuri fears that Victor will see what an absolute disaster he is of flaws and imperfections and Victor just sort of lights a flashlight and brings them into the light – inspects them and decides that he likes them, or that they don’t matter, that they’re not all Yuuri is.

 

Yuuri feels privileged. He feels honored and fearful and determined and absolutely scared witless.

 

Victor, and just Victor, is a dork. He’s petty and clueless and so, so kind Yuuri could die. He’s funny and sweet in unexpected ways. He’s humble and full of himself at the same time, as well as he’s arrogant and so sure of his own abilities, and so insecure about Victor the man, not the skater.

 

Sometimes Yuuri wonders if Victor has just as many issues as he himself has, just in different and unexpected ways. Well, he knows Victor has issues; he wonders more if Victor is aware of them.

 

Yuuri doesn’t enjoy living in denial. He knows _he_ has problems; probably less issues and just plain subscriptions at this point, but about this, he’s not entirely clueless. He doesn’t think Victor is either.

 

And if Victor ever wants to talk about any of it, Yuuri will listen. Which is a little bit hypocritical seeing as Yuuri would like to never talk about any of his issues, but most of them are so glaringly obvious that he sort of has to, to explain himself.

 

He has never explained Vicchan. Not to Victor.

 

He wakes up more often than not with Makkachin either lying down just beside his bed or in his bed, cuddled close. Makkachin follows him in after their nocturnal wanderings, and Yuuri wonders if this feeling of guilt is normal, if it’s reasonable he feels so guilty about hogging Makkachin’s attention.

 

That night, he shoos her into Victor’s room when they get back inside, and if his heart clenches when he slides the door closed behind her, her eyes large and knowing, then that’s just how things will have to be. He has no business robbing Victor of the things Yuuri desperately wants but can’t have, but those things are still a possibility for Victor, and Yuuri wants Victor to have _everything_.

 

Victor, whom despite Yuuri’s best and most ardent attempts, is closer than Yuuri could ever have imagined.

 

Victor, whose dog reminds Yuuri of all the things Yuuri doesn’t deserve but craves.

 

He can hug Makkachin’s fluffy head, let his fingers circle her silken ears, can whisper his confessions into her endless patience, and it’ll have to be enough.

 

*

 

“I wonder,” Victor muses when Yuuri is almost asleep on his shoulder. It’s been a long week – the flight back from China felt doubly so, possibly because Victor hasn’t let go of him since he stepped off the ice after his free skate. Not that Yuuri minds, no, quite the opposite, in fact. “I wonder if Makkachin was watching on the TV.”

 

Yuuri tries to make his brain think of anything else but sleep. He feels wrung from the inside out, drained, stretched thin. There’s a mark hiding beneath his collar that Victor made very sure stayed right where it is – it burns, aches in a way that makes Yuuri quiver. Victor’s jacket is draped over him, his arm a searing brand across his shoulders, their hands tightly tangled.

 

Victor’s breath is warm against the side of his head when he speaks.

 

 _Everything_ is Victor.

 

Victor doesn’t really need an answer – right now he’s just filling the silence and not particularly expecting Yuuri to answer or participate in any way. “I think she was,” Victor decides and tucks a strand of hair behind Yuuri’s ear. It’s nice.

 

Yuuri hums.

 

“I think she was congratulating me on my good taste in men,” Victor continues, “and then she was happy that she doesn’t have to split her nights between our beds anymore if I can make you join me.”

 

Honestly, Yuuri hadn’t thought that far. He hums again and pretends his body isn’t tense.

 

“Yuuri?” Victor tries, and oh, Yuuri should probably try and get his voice to start working. “You don’t have to, if you don’t want to. It’d be nice, though. If you want to.”

 

Victor’s careful fingers tilt his chin up and kisses him – Yuuri moves closer and kisses back.

 

 _Victor_ moves closer and says _join me, if you’d like_. Or more accurately; if _you_ want it, _I_ want it. If you don’t want it, then I don’t want it either.

 

There’s no one like Victor in the entire world.

 

“That’d be nice,” he agrees, finally finding a way to make his mouth form words. He practically melts when Victor lets his fingers scratch gently at his scalp. “It’s nice.”

 

Victor smiles; even though Yuuri can’t see his face, he can feel it and can hear it on his exhaled breath.

 

“It’d be nice,” Victor echoes, his voice a gentle smile. “You, me and Makkachin.”

 

And Yuuri closes his eyes tightly and wishes for more, feeling greedy, greedy, greedy.

 

*

 

It’s not that Yuuri tries very hard to keep it a secret. In fact, he doesn’t try at all, it just so happens that when he goes to the _butsudan_ , it just happens to coincide with the times when Victor isn’t around to ask questions Yuuri doesn’t want to answer, and he’s not sure he could even if he wanted to.

 

He’ll have to –

 

Because he sits there, quiet, and wonders when it stopped hurting so acutely, wonders when it faded into a duller, smarting bruise on his heart, one that only aches when he prods it with clumsy fingers, and he thinks of Makkachin’s curly head, her wet nose, her damp muzzle when she’s had her head burrowed in the water bowl. He thinks of his fingers tangled in her soft, warm fur, his hand resting on her gently expanding body as she sleeps so trustingly in his embrace. He thinks of her protectiveness, her instinct to stay by him and lean on him in the night.

 

“Vicchan,” he says. “I skated my Free program clean today at practice. Even the quad flip. Did you watch me? I think you did.”

 

He lets his eyes wonder skywards; fixes on the ceiling, and he ignores the buzz in his rapidly numbing legs. “Do you think it’d be different at all, if you were here? What if you were here with me, would I still be as lucky as I feel right now?”

 

He blinks the moisture away from his eyes, gaze locking on his tangled fingers. “Would I still feel as undeserving…? Vicchan, would you tell me, if you could?”

 

He’s not even sure what he’s saying anymore, just that he needs to say it. He’s been told more than once that he needs to use his words – he’s trying, because Victor has, for some reason, been dumped into his lap like a particularly undeserved but so wonderful gift, and Yuuri wants to catch hold despite knowing there’s nothing he can do that will make him worthy.

 

“Were you watching me, Vicchan? Are you still…?”

 

He didn’t notice when his hurt dulled, but the absence is still sometimes so near, so felt and so raw. It’s not so fresh, not anymore, but still an open sore he can admit to keeping open, like fidgeting and pulling at a scabbed wound, and he can’t keep from touching it, because Vicchan deserved so much better than what he got in life. Yuuri will do everything in his power to honor him in his death, at least.

 

He looks at Makkachin now and doesn’t see ghosts lingering around her anymore; doesn’t see a smaller body in her place and doesn’t hear the wrong tone of bark or feel the quicker heartbeat.

 

Makkachin is Makkachin. Vicchan was Vicchan.

 

And Makkachin is the one that watches over him in the darkness, even as he wakes in the night and fears he’ll wake Victor with either his harsh breaths or his stifled sobs, but she plasters herself against his back and traps Victor’s arm so it stays steady around Yuuri’s waist, and Yuuri could cry from his all the luck he hasn’t deserved.

 

Sometimes Yuuri frames Makkachin’s fluffy ears with his thumbs and lets his finger curve around her skull, and her eyes are so kind and so playful, and yet so different from Vicchan’s mischievousness. Sometimes he tells her about Vicchan in his quiet, native language, and he looks up when he feels Victor’s eyes on him, but Victor never asks.

 

Victor is so much better than what Yuuri deserves.

 

He should probably have expected it, when Rostelecom Cup happens. He hadn’t realized just how much he was waiting for the other shoe to drop until it does.

 

There are no words for the panic that grips him when Mari calls, and he’s not entirely sure Victor understands why Yuuri insists so desperately for him to leave. He thinks of the way Victor laughs and looks so happy when he runs with Makkachin; he thinks of water fights in the summer, of wet paws and blurted, squealing laughs, of intimate looks, of private smiles and kind embraces and heated kisses. He thinks of the calm he feels when Victor looks at him.

 

He _can’t_ lose it.

 

He thinks of Vicchan, the loss suddenly so near again, bubbling up with an intensity like it’s fresh all over again.

 

He doesn’t ever want Victor to have to experience the kind of despair Yuuri grappled with for so long – it’s faded, true, but it can still catch him unawares.

 

If he can spare Victor that kind of grief, he will do _anything_. He clutches Victor as tightly as he can; tries to memorize the feel of him against him before he watches him leave.

 

That hurts, too.

 

And going home, he didn’t dare hoping for a welcome committee, but somehow that’s exactly what he gets.

 

*

 

He’s almost asleep when Victor speaks. Victor has been tracing fingertips over Yuuri’s arm for the better part of an hour, and Yuuri is so relaxed he could melt.

 

“Mari explained some things to me,” he says softly. “Yuuri?”

 

Yuuri tries to make his voice work. It comes out more like a purr. His eyelids are so heavy…

 

“Yuuri,” Victor says, his fingers flattening to a hold, and Victor squeezes. “Listen to me, okay? I know you’re tired, but don’t fall asleep yet.”

 

It takes effort, but he manages to open his eyes. His eyes are level with Victor’s collarbone, but Victor’s fingers migrate to his chin and tilts his head up.

 

“I’ve always wondered why you look so sad,” Victor confides, “whenever you look at Makkachin. I didn’t know you were mourning.”

 

Abruptly, there’s a lump in his throat and Yuuri tries his best to force it down. It’s all he can do to nod, once, sharply.

 

“My dear love,” Victor murmurs. “You should’ve said. I would’ve understood.”

 

Yuuri wants to believe him, but he can’t. He knows now that it wasn’t just Vicchan. Vicchan dying was just the catalyst – falling and falling and falling all during last season _did_ something to him, to his brain, to his heart and to his self-esteem.

 

Vicchan’s death symbolizes all of it, epitomizes all that Yuuri wants but doesn’t deserve, and all that he’s willing to work for even knowing that.

 

Victor can’t possibly understand what that’s like, but that’s okay, too. Yuuri doesn’t _want_ him to understand, not this, not the desperation and the panic and the devastating blows to his universe.

 

“I’m not sad anymore,” Yuuri tries, and his voice is so hoarse. He’s cried already, because he’s tired, because it’s been a long weekend, because he’s been afraid and lonely and so desperate for Victor not to have to say goodbye to Makkachin. “I miss him, but it’s not so bad, not anymore.”

 

It’s not all he wants to say; it’s just what he can find the words for. Victor’s arms glide around him and squeezes him so close that Yuuri can barely breathe, but it’s good, so good, the scent of Victor and Yuuri’s own laundry detergent, of the sheets that smell like home. Makkachin is asleep on the floor, paws moving in her sleep – probably chasing steamed buns.

 

It isn’t so bad anymore. He misses Vicchan when he thinks of him, but how can he ever want for more when he has so much already? He thinks of Vicchan’s excited yips and the way he patiently waited for Yuuri whenever he was at the rink. He thinks of unwavering, unconditional love and endless enthusiasm, and he thinks that Vicchan would have wanted Yuuri to succeed.

 

“It’s okay,” Victor says into his hair, and Yuuri believes him. And if it isn’t now, then it will be.

 

He’s not there yet, not all the way, but it’s working. He’ll keep working on it, and maybe in time, he’ll forgive himself.

 

*


End file.
